“Excuse this peculiar note-paper! Henry has gone out to spend the evening, and I cannot find the family supply without more hunting round than is worth while for mere appearance’s sake. I was surprised and delighted at the good news in your welcome letter this noon! Certainly it was a great deal more than I expected, and I think your success, in such an ambitious effort, the first time, and with the ‘Aldine,’ is truly wonderful. I can only account for it by the explanation, that your talent in art is an intuition, a gift, by which you are, and will be, enabled to surpass those who would seem to be more likely to succeed than you, on account of greater practice and education in that particular. But even if this is the case, that would not be enough of itself, and you add to it an industry, a perseverance, and a courage which put you straight through. I cannot see why, if your health and strength are spared, yours should not yet become a prominent name among American artists. If you study, work, and continue to add to your knowledge and skill, you will, by and by, begin to compose, and once well started in that line, your future is made, and your best ambition satisfied. I congratulate you most sincerely and lovingly, and thank God that he has endowed you with a rare and blessed gift. _Now, don’t keep on working at night._ You must see that it is very unwise, and that for the future you should not allow yourself to be tempted into it.” His early friend, Mr. Beard, from whom the fortunes of business had separated him, wrote to him in the same warning strain. Would that these friendly counsels had been heeded! It was this burning of the candle at both ends which forecast the early end of it all at forty-six. But who can think of this letter as addressed to the boy in whom Mr. Gunn could awaken no spontaneous industry! “Do you know, I think that in many ways our divorce is a mistake. I am perhaps more prosperous, but not so happy as in the old times when we were together; and had we waited a little while we would have found ample space for both to swim without interfering with each other. The tide was rising. It has risen very high for you at least, and I have been and now am heartily glad that it is so.